Ricerc@Sapienza

Research on populism traced back the rise of populist attitude to political, economic, and cultural factors. The present research aims to investigate whether system justification, reflecting a system-supporting motivation to bolster societal stability, may be a relevant predictor of populist attitude. We propose that engaging in system justification may inhibit people to adopt populist attitude. This is because system justification motivates people to see existing societal structures as fair and to preserve their stability, which is not sitting well with populism¿shostile view ofsocietal arrangements, sentiment of discontent toward institutions, and demands for structural societal changes. Six studies, involving different methodological approaches (cross-sectional design,experimental design), statistical analyses (multigroup path analysis,multilevel mediation analysis,network analysis), and countries, will examinethe association between system justification and populist attitude as well as sociopolitical consequences (anti-immigration attitudes, system-supporting collective action, conspiracy beliefs, voting intentions) of such association. Specifically, we would expect that: (1) system justification is negatively related to populist attitude; (2) system justification is negatively related to trust in government; (3) trust in government is negatively related to populist attitude; (4) populist attitude is positively related to various sociopolitical consequences; (5) trust in government is positively related to sociopolitical consequences;(6) system justification is positively related to sociopolitical consequences; (7) the (positive) relations between system justification and sociopolitical consequences are mediated through (lower) trust in government and ¿ importantly ¿(lower) populist attitude. This research contributes to and moves beyond prior models and findings on system justification and populism, identifying thus promising avenues for future research.